Every year, the Newport Art Museum hosts a wonderful charity fundraiser auction called "Wet Paint" that brings together the artists and art patrons of Newport for a weekend of fun. On Saturday morning, all the participating artists gather to pick up bag lunches and then disperse to spend the day painting. That evening the artists clean up and cool off at a cocktail party and preview silent auction, and on Sunday there is a public silent auction all afternoon that culminates in a rousing live auction for the 50 most popular paintings from the silent auction. All of the proceeds (or 80% of them) go to benefit the Newport Art Museum, so its not only a fun event, and a chance to snag some deals on a few really great paintings, but it also is good karma!
I contributed two paintings this year (I cheated a little and painted them both earlier this summer). While they weren't popular enough to make it to the live auction I think that the fact that they both sold is a huge improvement on last year's 'my parent's bought my art' fiasco. It was super exciting to watch people bidding on my art, and I even got to see a bidding war go down over this little beauty:
I was absolutely shocked and flattered to see that it got about ten bids and it ended up going for $120!! Not bad for the first piece of art I've ever really sold.
I had actually expected this to be the hotter ticket, mainly because its much larger, but I guess the audience was a sucker for blue. Still this went for the very respectable $95!
It's the first time I've ever had a painting (or two) go home with strangers. Its a little weird, I wonder if I'll ever walk into someone's house and see my work hanging on their wall.
